Star Trek comic by DC Fontana

[HaplessCrewman]

I guess Star Trek comics fall under the rubric of "literature".

Read Star Trek: Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment by DC Fontana. The cover of the book says it is her first comics work. I would post an image but I "may not post attachments".

The comic was not that great - a little wordy and the likenesses were on and off. Fontana's dialogue ran very true though.

Have to admit I've always thought her contribution to Trek was always under-estimated. When will people like her, Gene Coon, Samuel Peeples, and John D.F. Black get their due?

http://www.idwpublishing.com/titles/startrek-enterex.shtml

 

[Therin of Andor]

When will people like her, Gene Coon, Samuel Peeples, and John D.F. Black get their due?

What more "due" do you want? I've been involved in ST fandom since December 1979, and the names of Fontana, Coon, Peeples and Black are revered by most ST, and especially TOS, commentators - even when these four haven't been directly involved.

Fontana, especially, remains a luminary of ST (esp. things like TAS and "Encounter at Farpoint"), and is still writing for it.

You had your chance to give DC her due for "The Enterprise Experiment" issue #1, but you didn't seem to like it. You called her "too wordy"?

 

[foravalon]

nicely put Ther, but why are we making a new thread for IDW Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment #1 when we already have one?

 

[HaplessCrewman]

Thanks for your comments, Therin.

I do not equate "giving due" with unabashedly praising someone's work just because I respect their work overall.

This was Fontana's first comics work. The mistakes she made were typical of a writer not familiar with the form. It's hardly a condemnation and btw I did praise her dialogue.

Re: Black, et. al. Perhaps I was speaking out of turn but I just read Joel Engels' book on Roddenberry and still had what he did to Black and Peeples in my mind. I hope you are right that most (knowledgeable) TOS fans are aware of their contributions - despite Roddenberry's protestations.

If you believe these writers have been justly recognized, I won't argue.

I see there is already a thread for this so I will direct future comments, if any, toward the other thread.

 

[Therin of Andor]

This was Fontana's first comics work. The mistakes she made were typical of a writer not familiar with the form. It's hardly a condemnation and btw I did praise her dialogue.

That kinda infers that the editor didn't do their job well enough?

I've certainly read comics with more (and text dense) word balloons - Chris Claremont's "Debt of Honor" comes to mind, and he's certainly no newcomer to the comic medium - but I really can't agree that TEE was too wordy. It was actually quite a swift read (for me) and at no time was I scratching my head saying, "Aha! A newbie comics writer!"

Re: Black, et. al. Perhaps I was speaking out of turn but I just read Joel Engels' book on Roddenberry

Which is only one side of the very complex story. You need to weigh this tell-all biography up with all those other tell-all biographical books that came out about the same time. Because somewhere in the middle of all of them, the truth may lie.